Cop’s corpse doused with caustic soda

BIZARRE details of how a retired lieutenant-colonel in the police was murdered and his body doused with caustic soda flakes, wrapped in blankets and plastic before being dumped in a manhole in Capital Park have emerged in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.

Danie Dreyer, 64, owner of Jacaranda Tombstones, was allegedly killed in his Villieria home before his body was transported to the home of Gerhardus Papenfus, allegedly by one of his killers.

Papenfus lived with his mother, who also owned the adjacent property, which she rented out. It emerged in court that Dreyer’s body was thrown into a manhole in the backyard of the rented property.

The unsuspecting tenant lived with the stinking corpse for several days before Dreyer’s former girlfriend, Estelle Reddy, 36, gave herself up to the police.

Lieutenant-Colonel Petrus van der Spuy of the Villieria police station told the court “something stank of rotten meat”.

“I asked them (Papenfus and his mother) whether they also smelt it. They said they smelt nothing.”

Acting on information received from Reddy, Van der Spuy went to the adjacent property where he saw the manhole.

“When I lifted the lid I saw something which looked like a body wrapped in plastic. I asked them what it was and they were at a loss for words,” he said.

It is not certain how long Dreyer’s body had been in the manhole. His body was discovered on April 4, 2016.

The cause of death was also not certain. In terms of an autopsy report, it is “unascertainable with autopsy examination alone”. It was also noted that he had suffered rib fractures and “corrosive chemical exposure”.

It was said by the State that the accused had bought 75kg of caustic soda flakes which they threw over the body in an attempt to “destroy the body”.